''Mad Monkey vs. the Dragon Claw'' is an

adventure module An adventure is a playable scenario in a tabletop role-playing game. These can be constructed by gamemasters for their players, and are also released by game publishers as pre-made adventure modules. Different types of designs exist, including l ...

published in 1988 for the ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...

role-playing game A role-playing game (sometimes spelled roleplaying game, RPG) is a game in which players assume the roles of player character, characters in a fictional Setting (narrative), setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within ...

Plot summary

''Mad Monkey vs. the Dragon Claw'' is an ''

Oriental Adventures ''Oriental Adventures'' (abbreviated OA) is the title shared by two hardback rulebooks published for different versions of the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'') fantasy roleplaying game. Each version of ''Oriental Adventures'' provides rules for ...

'' adventure scenario in which the

player character A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not control ...

s seek the Dragon Claw martial arts school and journey through T'u Lung to the Cult of the Black Leopard. In this first edition Oriental Adventures module, a group of player characters return to large quest-based adventures. This was the only adventure published for ''Oriental Adventures'' based entirely on Kara Tur's mainland, and one of the few modules that actually allows characters to multiclass who would not otherwise be able to do so.

Background

The background story is that the demon Dragon Claw, in the celestial bureaucracy, has convinced the Celestial Emperor to allow him to showcase his fighting style on Toril. It contends that its style is superior to all other forms, and if this turns out to be the case, it wants to rule an empire on the prime material plane. The Celestial Emperor has agreed, if only to see out the demons boast of its fighting style. Dragon Claw has neglected to mention that its fighting style includes it giving all of its students magical weapons which, aside from making them fanatical devotees to its fighting style, also make them much tougher than an average fighter. In this way, Dragon Claw is stacking the deck in its favor. Monkey, an agent among the court, has seen through the demon's plot, and is determined to thwart it. Monkey chooses to teach his own fighting style to the player characters, owing to them being able to multiclass freely as monks, though they normally are able to. All this leads up to the final battle in Toril's version of Sigil.

Publication history

OA5 ''Mad Monkey vs. The Dragon Claw'' was written by

Jeff Grubb Jeff Grubb (born August 27, 1957) is an author who writes novels, short stories, and comics and a computer and role-playing game designer in the fantasy genre. Grubb worked on the ''Dragonlance'' campaign setting under Tracy Hickman, and the ''F ...

, with a cover by Jim Holloway, and was published by TSR in 1988 as a 48-page booklet with an outer folder.

References

Dungeons & Dragons modules Forgotten Realms adventures Role-playing game supplements introduced in 1988 {{D&D-stub